


honeymooning (not by the sea)

by Kieron_ODuibhir



Series: Cirque de Triomphe [13]
Category: Batman (Comics), Batman - All Media Types, DCU
Genre: (yoko ono did not break up the band), Black Mask has minor ninja skills, Domesticity, Earth-3, F/M, Fluff, Humor, Interlude, Mirror Universe, Nicknames, Tickling, Tooth-Rotting Fluff, new couples are the worst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-23
Updated: 2015-10-23
Packaged: 2018-04-27 11:13:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,230
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5046157
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kieron_ODuibhir/pseuds/Kieron_ODuibhir
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Nothing about this is wise. They really couldn't care less.</p>
            </blockquote>





	honeymooning (not by the sea)

The second nickname came about after they'd been living together for two weeks.

They were in the bedroom, attempting to sort and fold their thoroughly comingled laundry—the confusion hadn't been _quite_ so bad at first, but the laundromat washers could always handle a higher volume than the dryers, so you wound up distributing three loads of wet clothes over seven dryers, taking out whatever was dry before putting in another quarter, and combining the remaining damp things into one machine when possible, to save on laundry expenses, and so by the end of the process there had been no distinction left between his and hers. Luckily most of Harley's wardrobe was much, much too small for J, so sorting was easy, and both of them were perfectly competent to fold. They just kept getting _distracted._

Only a little bit by kissing, because Jokester had turned out to be shy and Harley was determinedly not pushing him too fast, but cooperative laundry had reminded Harley of how when she was little her mother used to do the wash all at once like this, only with four people in the household the heap had been a mountain on the parents' queen bed, and she and Barry used to burrow into the pile and try to surprise Mom. It was (she admitted) a good thing they'd never actually managed to startle her, since they'd gotten in enough trouble for Barry's nose running on the clean clothes, but. It was still a good memory. She shared it.

And that led to other memories, and…they'd gotten to know each other, before, in Arkham, but it had been across a gulf, both of them prying what they could out of the other, him censoring names and places and anything compromising, and her giving only what she had to to maintain professional rapport, or at least telling herself that was what she was doing. This was different.

But there was still the chore to get through, and if the company made it seem less like a chore two pairs of hands were still not getting it done any faster.

"Try to find my other purple sock, couldja?" J called, as Harley crossed the tiny bedroom to grab the second-to-last basket to be sorted. "I'm hoping it didn't get eaten by the laundromat."

"I hear ya, puddin'," said Harley.

J, not unusually, cracked up. " _Puddin'?_ " he repeated, once he'd caught his breath.

Harley flung one of his collared shirts at his head, and he tossed it onto the pile to be ironed. "It's an _endearment_. You don't like it?"

"What, no, I love it, it's wonderful. Call me after any food you want."

"Eggplant?"

"How can I object?" he asked, shaking out lavender hair, which earned him a little chortle of acknowledgment that that really _hadn't_ been as absurd a choice as intended. Harley's tongue poked out the corner of her mouth.

"Pickles."

"Fabulous! And briny."

" _Haggis._ "

Jokester blinked. "Everybody's going to laugh at me, but that happens anyway, so…"

Bluff called and proven thus far unbreakable, she darted at him instead, poking at those spots between his ribs that she had recently discovered were (as if in recompense for the large patches of nerve damage in his acid-fused skin) _extraordinarily_ ticklish. He squirmed and wriggled and fended with his elbows and did his best to get her back, but Harley was only really ticklish on her stomach and the soles of her feet, and as she was shod and clothed at the moment, these were tricky targets. "Give it up, pudding-man!" she proclaimed, but of course he didn't. Eventually they almost knocked over the laundry and stopped, still giggling, and after Harley had stabilized the basket J swept her into his arms in his most overblown fashion.

"My darlingest most scrumptious pearl onion," he declared.

"Okay, this has officially reached the point of completely disgusting," announced an unexpected voice. "I'd say I'll go away and come back when the honeymoon phase is over, but I don't think I've got that kind of time."

J had jumped when the speaker first made himself known, not away from Harley, but beside her, facing the door, with his left arm still slung across her shoulders. "Roman!" he exclaimed, laughing in recognition. "I didn't hear you come in, man!"

"You better _not_ have," the younger man snorted. He was standing in the doorway that led out into the first half of the two-room apartment, arms crossed, his black mask dangling from his fingers by its string—he was rapidly approaching J's position on the Owl's most-wanted list, though for different reasons since he was technically _competition_ , and while J's concealment relied heavily on presenting himself with such bombast and flair that anywhere you couldn't see him right away you wouldn't bother to _look,_ Roman relied on a combination of concealing his identity during business and real, excruciating _stealth_ to avoid being seen except exactly when and how he wanted to be. "Sorry to intrude, but I kind of need your input yesterday."

"Nah, hey, come in, pull up a stool. We were just doing laundry."

"Sure you were." Roman rolled his eyes, but he did come out of the doorway and grab the three-legged stool, though he didn't sit on it. His eyes flicked over Harley. "J-man. This is _confidential_ , you know?"

Jokester's arm tightened around her, but his expression remained cordial. "Anything you can say to me, you can say to Harley."

Roman blinked, and then reached up to massage the bridge of his nose in the face of oncoming headache. "Oh ever-loving _God_ , you're serious."

"I'm _never_ serious."

"Why am I friends with you?"

"Actually," said Harley, "Mr. Sionis? I understand your feelings. Since I _am_ , in fact, a stranger, and not part of Mister J. So I'll just leave you to it, for now," she declared, shrugging out from under J's arm as kindly as was possible under the circumstances. Patted his wrist, looked Roman in the face until he looked back, and said, "but I do hope we can learn to trust each other, in time."

She smiled sweetly, made a kissy face at J, walked past Roman, and left the room, with a little more sway in her hip than usual. A few seconds later, there was the sound of the front door rattling open, and clacking closed. Black Mask glanced at Jokester, who hadn't lost the dopey smile with which he'd sighed her out of the room, and made a sound of derision. "You, my friend, are smitten."

"Mm-hm."

"And a dumbshit."

"Yeah. But isn't she _fantastic?_ "

"Uh-huh. She's completely out of your league, in fact."

J narrowed his eyes a little at his friend. "Are you going somewhere with this?"

Roman sighed. "She's your legit first girlfriend, yeah?"

"Well, that I can consciously remember, at least. Are you _going_ somewhere with this?"

"Just…don't get hurt."

"Roman. Thanks for being a complete mother hen and all, but it's _fine_. What did you want to talk about?"

Black Mask eventually started to believe Harlequin wasn't going to sell Jokester out, or break his heart, or otherwise ruin everything, but he never did stop making pained expressions when one of them pulled out another awful pet name. Half the time he had a mask on, anyway, which just made it easier to ignore him.

**Author's Note:**

> This ship has gotten out of control. Where is the pilot. Help. 
> 
> ^^ I had so much fun writing this nonsense though. What happens when you set out to design the opposite of a pairing you hate.


End file.
